The Ragged Optimist 61
"Without hope we don't know how to carry on" Every Brilliant Thing
The Coat of Hopes is a patchwork coat being worn on a walking pilgrimage through the UK, helping people think about the climate and ecological emergency. It has been made by and worn and walked by many hundreds of people on a journey on foot of around 2400km so far. It carries people's hopes for the places they live, sewn into the blanket patches of which it is made.
Currently in Kent, it arrives in Margate this Wednesday, with five pilgrims - if you'd like to come and meet them and see the coat it'll be at Marine Studios, 17 Albert Terrace at 6pm.
Bricks made from algae, walls made from crushed shells - the world of biomaterials is going to keep getting more interesting, I reckon.
Here’s an example. University of East London staff and students have created a school building in India from Sugarcrete, a biomaterial construction block made from sugarcane waste.
Nicoleta Carpineanu is making work to connect two 'forests' - the ancient woodland at Ebernoe and the kelp forest under the sea in the Sussex Bay. The project will culminate in a film, which her non-profit organisation, Forests Without Frontiers, hope to show in venues around Sussex in autumn 2025.
Cumberbatch reads Kurt Vonnegut’s letter to the future.
Biologists have confirmed the existence of a 200-million-year-old species of egg-laying mammal that has been assumed to be extinct. Spotted by Ant.
Otters meet beavers! This week’s first beaver news is this fab clip, spotted by Edward.
Bonus beaver news. At least five beaver kits have been born in the Cairngorms National Park. It’s the second year that the Cairngorms has had baby beavers.
Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan Macmillan is coming to the West End. We had this show in Margate, early on, as part of the repertoire in Paine’s Plough’s Roundabout theatre, and it’s become a global hit since then. It tackles a really hard subject, so be warned, but it will make you laugh as well as cry. The show is about a man who has made it his life’s work create a list of brilliant thing that exists in the world, a task he began as a child in response to his mum’s first suicide attempt – to give her reasons to live for. (You can watch a version filmed in the US here) Imagine spending all your time listing brilliant things … next …
Transition by Design, a design collective based in Oxford, has signed up to the national scheme which aims to encourage Living Wage employers to go one further and guarantee employees security of working hours. One of only five registered architecture workers’ co-operatives in the UK, it has chosen to join the scheme to ensure conditions for its workers are not ‘precarious or exploitative’ - does seem a bit daft to commit to a Living Wage but still treat people badly.
A moth species long thought to be extinct in England has made a dramatic return, rediscovered at Kent Wildlife Trust’s Lydden Temple Ewell Reserve near Dover after a 73-year absence.